FlyBase: Communicating Drosophila Genetics on Paper and Online, 1970–2000 (360G-Wellcome-200299_Z_15_Z)

The project will produce a history of FlyBase, an online database that orders and communicates genetic information about Drosophila. Established in the early 1990s, FlyBase was one of the earliest model organism databases and remains an essential routine tool for the Drosophila community. Taking on tasks previously accomplished by the paper-based Drosophila Information Service (DIS) newsletter and large, book-format mutant catalogues, FlyBase was representative of the transformation of biology into the highly collaborative, sequence-data-intensive, richly funded science it is today. Its history contributes to our understanding of that transformation. The goals of the project are (1) to provide a full picture of how disciplinary commitments and institutional politics shaped the community tools of Drosophila genetics, including DIS, the mutant catalogues and FlyBase; (2) to detail the history and development of the professional roles of ‘database genetics’; (3) to investigate how FlyBase changed the materials, practices, collaborations and organization of laboratory research in the 1990s; (4) to examine how FlyBase shaped Drosophila’s role as a model in biomedical research. I will thus recover the politics, infrastructures, professional expertise and practices of FlyBase and investigate what difference FlyBase has made to biology and biomedicine.